30 Best Chicago Med Episodes Ranked

The third in producer Dick Wolf's celebrated "One Chicago" franchise, "Chicago Med" got its start as a backdoor pilot in a Season 3 episode of "Chicago Fire" titled "I Am The Apocalypse." In that episode, the "Chicago Fire" team brings victims of a fire to nearby Gaffney Chicago Medical Center, and after the team saves the day, they are toasted at Molly's Bar for their incredible work. "Chicago Med" mainstays Oliver Platt, Yaya DaCosta, Nick Gehlfuss, and S. Epatha Merkerson would guest star in that episode before making the leap to regulars on the series.

"Chicago Med" has been running ever since and shows no signs of slowing down. Its broad ensemble cast has grown and changed shape with new incoming regulars and several outgoing cast members each year. With well over 100 episodes and counting, it can be tough to settle on the show's most memorable stories, so we've consulted IMDb to see which ones stand out, based on their user rating. Here are the 30 best "Chicago Med" episodes, ranked.

It's all hands on deck at Chicago Med in "Leave the Choice to Solomon" when a school bus crash leaves several children in critical condition. Maggie and Dr. Marcel rush to the scene, where they find the fire department already attending and several young students seriously injured, including two impaled on a piece of steel rebar.

Back at the hospital, children from the crash are arriving. The staff scrambles to keep up with the patients flooding the emergency department, including a girl who may be suffering from a newly discovered condition caused by vaping, which the girl's parents surprisingly approved of. When Dr. Marcel brings the children to the trauma ward, the complicated surgeries cause him concern, as he must deal with the possibility of losing a child to save another.

Natalie tends to a baby as "Pain is for the Living" and discovers a series of problems with the tiny patient that will require a number of procedures. The baby's mother, however, seems unusually excited by the whole ordeal, which disturbs Dr. Manning enough to look into her own medical history where she discovers a history of her own issues that could endanger her child. 

In the ED, a father arrives after admitting to having choked his son. Concerned about possible child abuse in the home, Dr. Charles does some digging and uncovers a different story from the son. With the need for expensive psychiatric treatment and a family that's financially strained, though, means the staff will have to go the extra mile to get them the help they need. As that's going on, Will calls on Dr. Asher for some help and is forced to confront her about her drug problem after she insists on performing surgery on a patient, which creates a delicate situation for him. 

The Season 5 episode "Guess it Doesn't Matter Anymore" features a not-quite crossover with the short-lived "Chicago Justice," as Jolene Carter guest stars, though in an entirely different role than she had on that series. Here she appears as Lynn, a woman suffering from an opioid addiction who Will realizes is a former patient. He wants to help her one more time, but it may be too late.

As for April, she comes clean to Ethan about the fact that she can't have children but decides to keep mum about her kiss with Crockett — as well as her feelings for him. And this dirty little secret may just become a bigger problem for her because Ethan finally pops the question. Dr. Charles is dealing with his own turmoil, still coping with the loss of CeCe. And when he tells Elsa that her ideas are no good, she mistakenly believes that his negativity is the result of his grief.

Airing in the first half of Season 5, "Too Close to the Sun" is an episode about choices, kicked off when Noah Sexton (Roland Buck III) arrives with a controversial patient — a wannabe gang member whom they encountered once before. Sexton explains the situation to Crockett, and he isn't happy about it, but reluctantly agrees to keep things quiet. When Officer Halstead of "Chicago PD" comes snooping around and discovers what's going on, things get dicey, and Noah has a decision to make.

Elsewhere, Maggie (Marylne Barrett) is heartbroken to learn that her new beau Ben (Charles Malik Whitfield) is not long for this world. Guilt-ridden, she is caught forging Manning's signature to get him released, but the consequences of letting him go could be even more serious than getting her into trouble.

The biggest story of the episode, though, sounds like a lot of laughs, but is anything but, as Dr. Choi and Dr. Charles are working with a social media-obsessed patient. Looking for likes, the man is allowing his followers to dictate his medical treatment, threatening to undermine the doctors' work.

"Heavy Is the Head" opens with a man hoping to donate a kidney to his dying son being let out of prison for the procedure. However, things don't go as planned as the seemingly well-intentioned father kidnaps his son at gunpoint to do one last selfless act for his child. As a hostage crisis erupts at the hospital, Ethan is caught in the middle and must find a way to resolve the sticky situation.

In another story, Natalie and Dr. Curry fight with a couple who arrive with a problem pregnancy. With the woman's life on the line, it's a race against time to convince the would-be mother to undergo a life-saving surgery before the pregnancy kills her. Dr. Connor's new hybrid operating room faces challenges as it gets up and running, but he attempts to start operating the new program anyway, leading to problems with both staff and equipment. 

Tragedies converge in the Season 1 finale of "Chicago Med." The episode titled "Timing" wraps up the show's debut year, and while it didn't win any points for reinventing the genre — with a few predictable twists and turns — it still manages to deliver top-notch drama as only the "One Chicago" franchise can. It's a gripping beginning as Downey is hospitalized when it's discovered that his cancer has made its way to his brain, and the prognosis is dire; There are few options and none of them are good. 

Natalie and Reese deal with a baby suffering an unknown ailment that could be fatal if they can't figure out what's wrong and get fixed quickly. On the personal side of things, a new group of students brings with it a man Natalie knew years before, a friend of her late husband. The two seem well acquainted and that makes Halstead nervous about their relationship. At the same time, he's just received some good news about his job at Chicago Med.

Dr. Asher is dealing with a young pregnant woman in "I Could See the Writing on the Wall," and the situation forces her to confront her own past. In the episode, we learn about how Asher's mother lost her life during childbirth, and how she's used that loss to motivate her all her life, including her career choice as an OBGYN. And when her patient takes a turn for the worst, Asher is suddenly dealing with a double dose of trauma.

Archer is also facing a crisis close to home, as he must come to terms with his own condition and decide whether he wants to reach out to his son for help. It's not an easy decision, and it's one he's tried to avoid making. The real story, though, is the shocking revelation that Dayton's plan has all along been to turn Chicago Med into a for-profit hospital, throwing the entire staff for a loop.

In the Season 5 chapter that also marked the show's 100th episode, "Ghosts of the Past," Dr. Charles' ex-wife Susan reappears to blame him for their daughter's recent misbehavior. Before you can blink, the teen is a mainstay at the hospital so Dr. Charles can babysit. As his daughter stews, Dr. Charles and Natalie work on a case of a woman suffering from a case of medical child abuse. While Natalie deals with a troubled mother-daughter duo, Dr. Charles discovers his daughter is getting into trouble of her own.

Elsewhere, April — who's facing difficulty with her IVF treatments — finally comes clean with Ethan about her kiss with Dr. Marcel, and Ethan doesn't take it well. In classic macho chest-thumping fashion, Ethan immediately confronts Marcel physically. 

In another crossover episode dealing with a big crisis, "The Things We Do" gives us a look at the hospital dealing with the aftermath of a medical helicopter crash and features characters from "Chicago Fire." Injured but alive, Natalie — on board when the helicopter unexpectedly lost power — is more concerned with the child they were transporting when they went down. When Will arrives at the scene, the crisis causes the couple to grow closer, and they ultimately agree to move in together.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Ethan gets assistance from Dr. Charles on a case of a man suffering from liver failure, who he believes to be an alcoholic. However, he soon realizes that the man's young son may be hiding something as well.

The Season 2 finale "Love Hurts" capped off a tremendous sophomore year that proved that "Chicago Med" was only getting better. It picks up shortly after the previous episode, where Dr. Charles' daughter Robin has been hospitalized. Charles is furious over the situation and lays the blame at the feet of Dr. Rhodes, who is also his daughter's boyfriend. After the tension deescalates a bit, they focus on the problem of what exactly is wrong with Robin, and it's Reese who breaks with the other doctors with her own diagnosis.

The victim of a car accident also enters the hospital, brought in by Officer Halstead from "Chicago PD." The problem is that the man is a refugee, and there is no access to his medical history, which complicates the case for Halstead's brother Will. We also meet guest star Dr. Becker (Norma Kuhling), who instantly clashes with everyone she meets. But all of these problems seem to pale in comparison to Sexton and Choi, who must work on a patient together while dealing with the aftermath of their kiss.

It's another crossover with "Chicago Fire" in this ice-breaking episode from Season 2 of "Chicago Med." It begins with the city under siege from a blizzard, and a massive multi-car pileup on the iced-over highway creates a cascade of worsening situations. As doctors and emergency workers head to the scene, joined by their counterparts at Firehouse 51 — including Matthew Casey and Kelly Severide — they'll have to size up a sprawling situation that quickly escalates out of their control.

Bound by ice and snow, Choi does his best to keep a man alive, knowing he'll never make it but hoping he'll hang on long enough to say goodbye to his wife, in one of the most gut-wrenching stories of the entire series. Before he can even recover from the heartbreak, Choi must make his own sacrifice to save the life of a dying child. With some of the most spectacular set pieces in the show's history, "Cold Front" is not to be missed.

In one of the most shocking episodes of "Chicago Med" ever, a psychotic break causes a patient to become trapped against a powerful MRI machine with a pair of scissors lodged near his jugular. It's a precarious, nail-biting story as the staff works to free him, knowing that at any moment, even the slightest movement could end his life, and there would be nothing they could do to save him. Now, the doctors must work together as a team, carefully coordinating their efforts, if they're going to win the day.

That's not the only story, though, as a Spanish teen arrives in the hospital suffering from a mysterious ailment, one that her mother is sure will be fatal — because it also killed her son. Still unsure of what exactly they're dealing with, Halstead and Cuevas must fight to find a treatment for what turns out to be an extremely rare disorder.

"Does One Door Close and Another One Open" is the mind-bending Season 8 finale that gave a longtime "Chicago Med" cast member an emotional send-off. The end of an era for the show, the episode begins with the OR's artificially intelligent computer surgery system — nicknamed "2.0" — going haywire, though they don't realize it at first. When Dayton's plans for an IPO (initial public offering) go up in smoke, it threatens the progress they've made on the system and forces them to consider selling the hospital altogether, which brings conflicting feelings.

At the same time, Archer takes it upon himself to save a patient whose insurance won't allow for a life-saving surgery. But in the process, he discovers his own infection caused by his dialysis procedure. Worse still, when Sean demands he go through with the transplant he'd previously offered, Archer has to inform him that his recent alcohol relapse meant he was no longer eligible. And with Maggie apparently looking for a new position, the staff may be down one critical staff member.

The series' phenomenal Season 4 comes to a close with the finale "With a Brave Heart," where we see April reveal that she may be pregnant, teasing what could be a big storyline the following season. At the same time, another storyline wraps up with Emily Choi moving in with her boyfriend Bernie, alongside his wife and their daughter, to create an unconventional family dynamic. No judgment here, but audiences can't expect that to work out given Emily's troubled and volatile history, meaning this might not be the end of the story after all. 

Will also gets word from an FBI agent that he may be in danger, but the biggest shock of the finale comes from Natalie, who is left seriously injured in the episode's closing moments, with her fate left uncertain as the credits roll.

"Never Let You Go" is the highest-rated episode of "Chicago Med" on IMDb, and for a good reason. It's a tense, gripping hour of television, where a hostage crisis takes over the emergency department after a distraught father discovers his girlfriend has put their child up for adoption. The teenaged mother had come into the hospital thanks to a car accident that induced labor, forcing her to make a decision on the fate of her unborn child sooner than expected. 

When the father arrives, he begs her to reconsider, but to no avail. Goodwin and the staff try to help him find legal options, but he takes matters into his own hands with a gun, demanding to take the baby. Dr. Connor and Ethan hatch a daring plan to thwart the enraged man, but the police may end things their way.